Long standing PSPS member John S Richardson (pictured
above with Capt Leonard Horsham aboard the Medway Queen) has sailed
aboard paddle steamers for most of his life. This month he recalls three
of his favourites.

"My earliest
paddle steamer memory is of sailing from Southend Pier when I was about 5 or 6
years old aboard the Queen of the South) (pictured above). In the 1920s
my family had moved from London on doctor’s advice because of my mother’s poor
health, and she was advised to take the sea air whenever she could. The year was
1929 or 1930 and my mother and father took me on this cruise up the Medway to Strood.

We had a family photo
of my mother and myself taken by my father at the end of Strood Pier with the paddle box of Queen of the South behind us. The ship was
originally a Belle steamer and one of the smallest in that fleet. Sadly the
photo was mislaid or thrown away when my mother died but it confirms the date,
as Queen of the South finished with the New Medway Steam Packet Co in 1932.

Medway Queen
(pictured above) was one of my favourites because as a boy before the War my
Father was a friend of her Master Capt Bob Hayman who was a great character and
allowed me up on the bridge and sometimes would let me take the wheel on the way
to Herne Bay until the bosun took over. Sadly Bob Hayman died just after the war.
The new Captain was Len Horsham whom I had often watched before
the war from the end of Southend Pier when he was Master of City of Rochester.

This is a more up to date picture of
Medway Queen after the war and before she had that unsightly contraption on her funnel
(fitted in 1954) to carry the navigation lamp as she had no main mast. I thought she looked her
best pre war with the cowl on the funnel. I quickly became friendly with Capt
Horsham on Medway Queen on telling him of my friendship with Bob Hayman. I often did
light runs with him back from charters etc and generally enjoyed his company and
the ship became a kind of second home for me.

This is an unusual photograph given to me by a
member of World Ship Society many years ago. Normally the Essex Queen
(pictured right) sailed from Chatham half an hour earlier than Medway Queen
to go to Margate or Clacton, so why was she still on Southend Pier when the
Medway Queen arrived; perhaps a charter or a mechanical problem? There must
have been another ship on the extension berth on Southend pier which caused the
Medway Queen to berth alongside Essex Queen for disembarking and
embarking passengers. The Essex Queen was another ex "Belle" steamer
Walton Belle that Capt Shippick had bought in the 1920s to strengthen his
NMSPC fleet."

"From Southend we
used to sail either on the “Medway Queen” or “Essex Queen” (pictured above off
Ramsgate) to Herne Bay or Margate, as these two ships gave one plenty of time
ashore in the Kentish resorts. Sometimes from Herne Bay we caught a bus to
Canterbury, or to Margate where we went for walks along the seafront or after
lunch in Bobby’s Restaurant in the High Street listened to the band at the Oval
Bandstand in Cliftonville. Both these ships gave us 5 hours ashore, whereas General
Steam Navigation Co
ships only 2 hours or so, also Queen Line were cheaper. In the 20s and 30s money
was very tight."